Free Republic

Spanish police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law, authorities said on Sunday.

It's a little easier to understand why a man who claimed to have thwarted a potential terrorist attack on a plane has not answered repeated requests to tell his story. He was not on the plane, according to AirTran Airways. "After conducting additional research into this situation, we have verified, according to flight manifests (legally binding documents) that the individual that allegedly created a first-hand account of events on-board AirTran Airways Flight 297, a Theodore Petruna, was never actually on-board the flight," AirTran said in a statement, which the AJC was the first to obtain. An e-mail from a Tedd...

# Freedom of religion is fundamental to Swiss law and European human rights treaties. # A minaret is a simple and common architectural feature of a mosque, and is neither a safety risk nor a public nuisance. # A minaret carries no political symbolism or significance. # Advertising campaigns to promote the law were racist. # The law may alienate Swiss Muslims, who are largely of European origin and are known to be moderate. # The international outcry against the law may have a negative influence on the Swiss economy and foreign relations

The FAA is investigating an incident aboard an AirTran flight from Atlanta to Houston that touched off a firestorm of e-mails. AirTran Flight 297 was delayed on November 17 after a passenger refused to turn off his cell phone. *snip* According to the e-mail, Petruna and other passengers believed they witnessed a dry run for a terrorist attack. Petruna said he couldn’t talk on camera, but Chaplain Keith Robinson, who was also on the flight, did talk with us. *snip* “Flight attendants were sobbing openly,” Robinson said. Robinson said a passenger getting off the plane warned him not to get...

SPANISH police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law... Authorities say the men set up a court there to judge her for adultery. "These men had formed a kind of court to apply (Islamic) sharia law,'' the spokesman said, adding the woman told authorities she was tried and sentenced to death. She was later able to escape and report what happened to police.

slideshow In the age of balloon boys and party crashers, regular people just don't know what to believe any more. Last week, I spent more than my share of hours trying to track down the truth about an incident on an AirTran flight out of Atlanta on Nov. 17. Flight 297 to Houston, with about 70 passengers onboard, departed gate C-16 at 4:43 p.m. Until something happened that caused the pilot to turn around and come back. Two and a half weeks later, the incident is in high dispute, thanks to some passengers who have spoken out on the Internet...